


Lullaby

by claudinedelyon



Series: Translator AU [5]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Gen, Have some season 1 feelings, Reminiscing, translator AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudinedelyon/pseuds/claudinedelyon
Summary: “Look at you.” She leans over to squeeze his knee since he’s still not moving. “Who’s being an adult now, no longer trying to steal other people’s boyfriends?”“You’re one to talk,” he laughs. “I don’t remember Gio being single when we started university.”--In which Martino meets his goddaughter, and he and Eva discuss the past, the present and the future.





	Lullaby

“So, what do you think?”

Eva sits back, waiting for Martino’s answer. At first, he only glances up at her with a look that says he doesn’t appreciate the question and he’s going to be difficult about it. It lasts barely a second, but she’s known him long enough to recognize it.

Not relaxing from the stiff posture he had adopted when she had placed a not-so-happy Gaia, all of 12 days old, in his arms, he looks down at the baby to study her. She seems to be looking back in his general direction through half-open eyelids. When he looks back up at Eva, she tilts her head to the side inquiringly.

“I don’t know,” he answers in a tone that is much too whiny for such a simple question. “She’s just a baby. And I don’t even think I’ve seen pictures of you as a baby, so how would I know who she looks the most like?”

“Coward,” Eva retorts with a laugh. “You’re not sticking your neck out, are you?”

“No, I’d rather not risk it.”

“Coward, but wise. Back at the hospital, my dad kept claiming she looked like me, Gio’s mom said she looked like him. Neither of them would let it go, it was a whole thing. The nurse was so tired of them, she made them leave at one point.”

“Did you guys pay her to do that?” Martino asks in a hushed voice, as if trying to make her spill out her secret.

“Definitely. We won’t have money to feed her, but at least, I got a whole hour of sleep that day!”

Martino laughs. “Ah, so today is when Gio gets his turn at his one hour of sleep.”

“Yep. We take turns taking naps.” She nods towards the bedroom where Giovanni had passed out only minutes before Martino’s arrival. “Are you jealous yet?”

“Aw,” Martino replies not so sympathetically. “And you used to be so proud of your ability to take an exam on two hours of sleep in college.”

Eva certainly remembers bragging about it at the start of her French version exam during the year when she was attempting to burn the candle at both ends. Coincidently, she also remembers struggling not to fall asleep on her laptop in a room full of diligent students as well as failing that very exam.

“Given my grades, I think I may have overestimated that ability, actually,” she confesses with a wince.

By the way Martino raises his eyebrows, he seems to agree with that assessment, but then again, he had been in that very room with her taking that same exam.

Not to mention that he had gotten her out of more than one embarrassing situations when she hadn’t had anybody else to call, never uttering a word of judgement despite them being barely on speaking terms during a particularly fraught period of their friendship, and she had returned the favor later on, when he had been the one in need.

Now, though, there hasn’t been much burning of candles in recent months, especially not when there are helpless clients to deal with and translators to herd day in and day out, and there probably won’t be any for a while.

Martino looks down at Gaia and, like anybody confronted with an infant, he offers his little finger to her clenched hand. Eva won’t begrudge him that, she had been the very first to try it.

Like every baby before her, Gaia grabs his finger and holds on to it tightly.

“I can’t believe you guys have a kid now.”

As Gaia wriggles in his arms, he adjusts his position so she can be more comfortable, never taking his eyes off her.

“Yeah. Imagine how I feel,” Eva replies, looking on in a mix of fondness and amusement.

“Do you remember our first year of masters, when you tried to get a rat?”

Eva bursts into startled laughter at the memory, one she hasn’t thought about in years, not since they adopted Pierre the cat and she crossed her fingers in the hope that her pet-caring skills had improved since she finished college.

“Oh, God, don’t remind me. Poor Meta. I really had no idea what I was doing.” Martino laughs with her at the thought of the short-lived rat who had lived in Eva’s tiny studio apartment for all of three months before dying of mysterious causes. “And don’t compare my daughter to a rat,” she adds fake-sternly, more out of his principle than actual offense.

Martino attempts an aborted gesture in response, one that he abandons immediately before looking down at Gaia like he’s afraid that if he moves, he’s going to break her.

Eva’s not going to begrudge him that one either. That particular fear still keeps her up on some nights when she’s desperately trying to catch up on much-needed sleep.

“Back then, did you think that’s where you’d be today?” Martino asks, finally turning his full attention to Eva again.

“Which part? The job or the baby?”

“I don’t know. Any of it.”

What little Eva remembers of her plans at the time is vague and fuzzy, but so was the future when she had tried to picture it as a student.

“I think it depends how old I was when you asked me. During our bachelors, I definitely wouldn’t have imagined either. I don’t think I would have bet on this either.”

She gestures between them in a way that could be interpreted to mean a variety of things, but part of her is specifically referring to the two of them and their current situation. Given the way he frowns, he might have understood it that way as well.

“What do you mean?” He asks, nodding at the space between them, as he still doesn’t dare make any wider gesture.

“I mean that there was a point in college when I wouldn’t have thought we’d still be friends today.”

Here is another memory she doesn’t think about too often, although more out of a deliberate attempt to move on than any forgetfulness on her part. It’s all behind them now and it has been for a long time, or it would have been impossible to be where they are today, to live with Gio and to work with either him or Martino every day.

He must get what she’s talking about as he looks down, moving his hand left and right slightly while Gaia’s fist follows the movement.

“That’s true,” he answers eventually, and his tone is subdued.

“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing Marti. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here,” she jokes, hoping that she hasn’t ruined the mood by bringing it up. The purpose of the invitation had been to introduce Martino to his goddaughter, not to dig out what was best left in the past.

“No, that I’ll believe.” He smiles and looks back at her. “It’s just not my proudest moment.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

He nods thoughtfully and there is not really a way to jump back on the nostalgic track after that, so she changes the subject.

“And that was a long time ago. Now, you’ve got Nico. You guys look happy.” Her tone is almost questioning but she knows she picked the right topic when his features school themselves in that fond look he’s been sporting quite a lot recently. That’s one look they didn’t see much of in college.

“Yes, we are. It’s really good. You know, I think…” He looks away for a second and Eva moves closer on her seat, sensing something interesting is coming. “I think I might ask him to marry me.”

Eva’s eyes widen as she sits up in surprise. “Really?” He nods, that small smile still in place. He sounds like it might have been the first time he’s said it out loud, and she’s touched that he’s trusting her with that news.

For all that their relationship had gone through its rough patches, which didn’t make having almost all their classes together easy for a good few months, Eva has ended up being the first to know quite a lot about him, including that he was gay, that he used to have feelings for her now husband and that he had first started dating Gianluca, all of these by accident.

It’s almost poetically appropriate, in a going-full-circle kind of way, that they’re both here now and that he’s telling her himself this time. They really have grown up.

“That’s amazing, Marti. Do you have something planned?”

“No. It’s just an idea. I want to make it special, but I’m not sure how. It’s still months away, but my parents want to do something for my birthday next year and invite everybody, I figured maybe then.”

“I’m sure he’d love that,” she offers, and the smile on Martino’s face widens.

“I think so, too.”

“Look at you.” She leans over to squeeze his knee since he’s still not moving. “Who’s being an adult now, no longer trying to steal other people’s boyfriends?”

“You’re one to talk,” he laughs. “I don’t remember Gio being single when we started university.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who fucked with his relationship. Gio did that himself.”

Just like that, they’re right back on the topic they had been trying to avoid, only it seem much safer to broach now, even to joke about.

He shuffles carefully to sit up straighter and gives her a look. “Come on, you knew he had a girlfriend.”

“I did, and when I figured he liked me too, I told him he had to choose.”

“And nothing happened before they broke up?” He retorts with a knowing look.

It’s a rhetorical question, but it takes her a second longer to answer than she would have liked, and he’s already looking like he’s won that argument. “Mind your own business,” she shoots back instead.

“And when you kissed that guy, you knew you were with Gio.”

“Hey, don’t bring Fede into this, that’s a different thing we’re talking about. But if you want to go there, let me remind you why that was blown out of proportions.”

Martino makes a face as if he’s accepting defeat.

“Does Gio know?” Eva asks after a short silence. She had never been quite able to figure it out. Once she and Gio had gone back together in their last year of masters, they had both agreed not to dwell on their last attempt at a relationship and to start afresh, both of them having learned a thing or two in the meantime.

Even though the whole story is very much behind them and has been for years, very little was ever actually stated, it was mostly implied. It’s the first time in a really, really long time that the subject is broached out loud and directly.

“What part? That it was my fault he found out about Fede or that… or why I told that other girl?” She doesn’t point out the way he stumbles halfway through his sentence before correcting himself, they both know what he means.

“Any part.”

“Did you ever tell him the whole story?” He asks after pondering the question for a moment.

“No.”

“Then, I don’t think so.”

She had suspected as much and nods.

“I guess it would have made a lot of things kinda weird.” She’s aware as she says it that’s it’s quite an understatement.

“Was it ever weird for you?”

“It used to be, but not anymore. I hadn’t thought about the whole thing in… I can’t remember how long. It was so long ago, and we were just so bad at… basically everything.”

That brings the smile back to his face, a smile full of indulgence for the messes of their first years as students. “We really were.”

“But I think we did better moving on than actually dealing with it.”

“Yes, I guess so. I’m glad we did.”

On that note, they both look down at Gaia who is now fast asleep, her fists still held tight.

“I hope you’re not going to be the one singing her lullabies. Life’s hard enough without adding that trauma right from the start,” Martino points out, effectively putting the past where it belongs and returning them to the present.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Eva, come on. Remember those karaoke nights at that bar we always went to? I’ve heard you sing.”

“Drunk singing doesn’t count. And what tells you Gio would be any better?

“I don’t see how it could be worse.”

Eva’s smile grows slowly. “Have you actually ever heard him sing?”

Martino’s clearly about to answer that, of course he’s heard his best friend sing, but instead, he pauses and looks up, visibly digging through memories.

“No, I know I did. That time we went to his aunt’s house on the lake after graduation, I remember we were all cleaning up and there was that stupid song on the radio. I’m pretty sure he was singing too.”

“Well, if you’re pretty sure. But I can tell you, here, I’ll be the one doing the singing.”

Because they got sidetracked before they could delve deeper into the subject, she brings back his big announcement, and she’s only partly teasing. “I bet you can’t get him to sing at yours and Nico’s wedding.”

“Okay, hold your horses, we’re not there yet.”

“As if he was going to say no, Marti. Come on. I bet you 20 euros.” He doesn’t rise to the bait, so she repeats her earlier taunt. “Coward.”

“I’m not betting money on this,” Martino finally replies.

“Fine. If you lose, you have to work on an episode of _Un Posto Al Sole_.”

“Oh, that’s how you’re playing? Fine, but if you lose, you have to take the next video from the geologists that has a French or a Spanish speaker.”

“That’s a way worse punishment. But it’s your wedding, so okay.”

Martino looks at her warily, then using as much caution as he can, he manages to free his arm from under a still sleeping Gaia, and holds out his hand.

“Alright, you’re on.”


End file.
